Injuries betide Team India

Sachin Tendulkar -- tendonitis in right hip

Ishant Sharma -----toe and finger

Harbhajan Singh –- pulled left hamstring

Yuvraj Singh –----- knee

Irfan Pathan -------lower back

S Sreesanth ------- left ankle

MS Dhoni --------- ring finger

Zaheer Khan –---- heel.

No, these are not being auctioned. This is the medical bulletin prepared by Team India physio John Gloster that has left Gary Kirsten with a corrugated forehead and robbed him of his sleep.

While Zaheer is recuperating in Centre for Sports Medicine in Johannesburg and looks doubtful for the first Test against South Africa in Chennai on March 26, both Yuvraj and Harbhajan might need to put their limb under the knife.

Gloster is clearly not the most popular physio we ever had. Javagal Srinath was in Delhi a couple of months ago when he lashed out at Gloster. “As a physio, you should not wait for injuries to happen before taking care of the players,” he said.

Well, players are to be blamed as well. The same cricketers who cried hoarse at the increasingly taxing schedule are gleefully putting themselves under the hammer and volunteering for the Indian Premier League (IPL) without any qualms. So to an extent, the injuries are self-inflicted. So why blame the calendar?